Nice post Bard, I hope you clicked on the link to the Pacific decadal oscillation and read a bit of it. Although Wikipedia, it is pretty good, and notes the bits and pieces of variation in Pacific ocean temperatures. Most of us have heard about El Nino, but the actual variations are quite complex, and the article does a pretty good job.

Anyone that tells you that they can take a few years of temperature data, and conclude either that we are warming more rapidly than ever, or headed for an ice age, is full of it. Probably panicking or paid to say what they are saying. We can only try to find trends by averaging--very carefully--longer term temperature data that shows the short trends as blips, or temporary high and low points. Much has been made of the "plateau" in temperature since 1998. But we now know that the 1997-8 highs were the result of these oscillations:

Quote:

According to the World Meteorological Organization, the 1997-'98 El Niño was a major factor in 1997s record high temperatures. The estimated average surface temperature for land and sea worldwide was 0.8°F higher than the 1961-1990 average of 61.7°F. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 1998 has set all-time highs of global land and ocean surface temperatures, above record high levels in 1997. In 1998 the mean temperature was1.2°F (0.7°C) above the long-term (since 1880) mean of 56.9°F (13.8°C).

The impact of the 1997/8 El Niño has been felt in many parts of the world: Droughts have occurred in the Western Pacific Islands and Indonesia as well as in Mexico and Central America. In Indonesia drought caused uncontrollable forest fires and floods, while warm weather led to a bad fisheries season in Peru, and extreme rainfall and mud slides in southern California. Corals in the Pacific Ocean were bleached by warmer than average water, and shipping through the Panama Canal was restricted by below-average rainfall.

So it is apparent that this higher temperature--perhaps as much as 1.2 degrees F--skewed the data on warming up. Unbiased analysis goes back well before this data point. It does show that warming is slower than thought--a good thing.

We have much to learn yet about the warming of the deeper oceans. It may be a temporary slowing of the warming that will surge again, or it may be a phenomenon that provides significant buffering of the impacts of increased CO2 and heat, and means the long term climate response will be less than feared. It is too soon to know yet.

<<<Between 1998 and 2012 the global economy more than doubled and the world pumped more than 100 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, yet global surface temperatures have remained essentially flat (yet the report still shrills in boldface, "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal"). That's the mystery: If emitting CO2 into the atmosphere causes global warming, why hasn't the globe been warming?

That's the question we would have liked to see answered by the IPCC, which since its last report in 2007 has seen some of its leading scientists exposed as bullies and some of its most eye-catching predictions debunked (e.g., the vanishing Himalayan glaciers).

blah, blah, and blah squared

Translation: Temperatures have been flat for 15 years, nobody can properly explain it, IPCC "likely temp increase" forecasts are dropping with every update, IPCC temperature increase models based on CO2 emissions have been proven by application to past data to be overblown (by 100 to 800 percent) ... and the IPCC doesn't want to spend much time studying any of this because it is politically inconvenient and shows that the computer models on which all climate-change predictions depend remain unreliable.

The primary lesson of this IPCC report is uncertainty. IT ADMITS ... quietly ... there's little evidence to suggest that climate change caused by man has had much to do with the duration of droughts or the intensity of hurricanes, although it might in the far future.

Another lesson of the IPCC report is that now is the time for policy caution. If the nonwarming trend continues, the climate models will need remodeling, but at least that's far less costly than trying to undo grand global redistribution schemes like carbon cap and trade.

And another lesson is that amid such uncertainty the best insurance against adverse climate risks is robust economic growth. The wealthier the world is in 50 or 100 years, the more resources and technology it will have to cope if the worst predictions come true. But that requires free-market, pro-growth policies that are the opposite of the statist fixes pushed by the climate alarmists.

They use the flimsy intellectual scaffolding of the IPCC report to justify killing the U.S. coal industry and the Keystone XL pipeline, banning natural gas drilling, imposing costly efficiency requirements for automobiles, light bulbs, washing machines and refrigerators, and using scarce resources to subsidize technologies that even after decades can't compete on their own in the marketplace. >>>

Blah blah blah. The self censoring Mike Fick doesn't bother to read scientific information that shows that the 1998 temperature was an anomalous peak at the end of an El Nino (posted immediately above, for convenience--in ignoring reality).

The claim on coal is particularly amusing, and indicative of a head firmly in the sand (or perhaps some other dark place.) Coal cannot compete with natural gas at the moment--it was the market that made it non-competitive.

You have to laugh at such determined ignorance--of course, fed by a Murdoch newspaper. Paid in full by the carbon liars.

Good citation CB. The most powerful part is the animation that shows how cherry-picking data (or just using a limited part of the actual trend, because that is all the data that you have) can lead to a wrong conclusion.

When I took numerical methods in graduate school, the course that is the theoretical and mathematical underpinning for modeling, our professor gave us several data sets. When graphed they showed a rising trend, a falling trend, and a flat line. They had enough data points to suggest that you could draw a conclusion. They were actually points cherry-picked from a sine curve to make the prof's point--you need to know how robust, and representative, your data set is.

The deniers seem to have not taken either that course, or the one on ethics in science.

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